Published: August 2, 2025
Today, four chapters were updated simultaneously.
This is chapter 3.
"What’s going on!"
Following Mr. Roche, I headed behind the carriage, where the area for butchering the prey was in an uproar.
"What happened? Any injuries?"
"When we started draining the blood, the blood in the bucket suddenly started to thrash about. They were just startled—that’s why all the fuss. No injuries though. But what is this? Did some animal fall in or something?"
"Ah, that’s where my slime was... Strange. What’s wrong?"
From the bloody slime, I sensed a panicked atmosphere.
There was no sign of any external enemy...!
"Gazelle-kun! Which prey did you start bloodletting on earlier!?"
"Prey? Well, it’s that one at the very edge over there."
"‘Appraise’!"
I examined the hanging meat.
“Grass rat carcass.”
A herbivorous rodent. Widely inhabits grassy plains and areas with abundant vegetation.
The meat is fresh but contaminated with poison.
This poison is almost harmless if ingested orally, provided there are no wounds inside the mouth.
Not impossible to eat.
"Just as I thought. There’s poison in it."
"Poison!?"
"We didn’t use anything like that!"
Gazelle-kun’s companions said so, but the appraisal clearly showed the presence of poison. However, it’s probably true they didn’t use poison themselves.
Then, the likely culprit is somewhere else... Found it!
"Here it is."
Though hard to see due to blood and fur, there are two small holes side-by-side on the inside of the front paw.
"Snake bite marks. Presumably, it was attacked by a venomous snake before you caught it."
It probably barely survived the attack at the scene. But then it was caught by hunters who came to its burrow, and the poison that had been eating away at its body remained in its bloodstream. The bloodletting caused the blood mixed with poison to enter the bucket where the slime was.
Perhaps the thrashing is an attempt to avoid the blood mixed with poison. But—
"Oh? It’s calming down now."
"...It looks like the bloody slime absorbed the poison along with the blood."
"Is that even okay!? What about medicine or something?"
The poison from the local venomous snake. Since it’s nearly harmless when ingested orally, it’s likely the bush snake... There is an antidote, but it’s a human oral medicine, not something for direct injection into the bloodstream. First, we want to dilute the toxic components as much as possible.
We collected the blood from other buckets too, gathering as much blood as possible.
"There were seven more grass rats, right? Sorry, but could you check those seven as well? If there’s no poison in them, could you give me their blood? It’s unrelated to the training content, so I will pay a reward as well."
"It was our mistake, so we don’t need money, right?"
"Y-Yeah. I guess it’s fine to take as much blood as you want."
"It’s just going to be thrown away otherwise."
"Yeah."
"Thank you!"
We quickly checked the other seven and poured their blood in.
"I hope this dilutes the poison a bit... Even if not, the bloody slime can still get nutrition."
They’re struggling now, but it’s not exactly a crisis. The bush snake’s poison is mild, and the bloody slime has poison resistance. Not as strong as poison resistance skills, but it should tolerate some poison. We’ll monitor it with dilution and nutrition for a while. Medicine not yet tested on slime is the last resort.
"We’ll keep it resting for a while. Thanks, Gazelle-kun."
"Don’t thank me, we hardly did anything."
"Just giving the blood helped a lot. I was careless with the slime, so please don’t worry about that, and neither should those three."
The three I spoke to replied but seemed awkward.
Mr. Roche circled behind them and lightly patted them on the back.
"You might find it hard not to worry, but nothing changes by sulking. Don’t end it there; reflect on this and use it to improve next time. Ryoma, that’s right, isn’t it?"
"Yes. Exactly."
This time the poison was almost harmless orally, but they might have eaten the meat without realizing it was poisoned. If the poison was harmful regardless of ingestion method, it would be dangerous. In the worst case, it could have been fatal immediately.